BV 

4G39 
i ,M46 



J, E A K N I M G TO J, V R 
B Y 
J. R. H I I. L I R. 







Glass 

Book_ 

Copyright N°- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



LEARNING TO LOVE 



DR. J. R. MILLER'S BOOKS 


A Heaet Garden 


Joy of Service 


Beauty of Evert Day 


Lesson of Love 


Bethlehem to Olivet 


Making the Most of Life 


Building of Character 


Ministry of Comfort 


Come ye Apart 


Morning Thoughts 


Dr. Miller's Year Book 


Personal Friendships of 


Evening Thoughts 


Jesus 


Every Day of Life 


Silent Times 


Finding the Way 


Story of a Busy Life 


For the Best Things 


Strength and Beauty 


Gate Beautiful 


Things to Live for 


Glimpses through Life's 


Upper Currents 


Windows 


When the Song Begins 


Go Forward 


Wider Life 


Golden Gate of Prayer 


Young People's Problems 


Hidden Life 




BOOKLETS 


Beauty of Kindness 


Marriage Altar 


Blessing of Cheerfulness 


Mary of Bethany 


By the Still Waters 


Master's Friendships 


Christmas Making 


Secret of Gladness 


Cure for Care 


Secrets of Happy Home 


Face of the Master 


Life 


Gentle Heart 


Summer Gathering 


Girls ; Faults and Ideals 


To-day and To-morrow 


Glimpses of the Heavenly Transfigured Life 


Life 


Turning Northward 


How? When? Where? 


Unto the Hills 


In Perfect Peace 


Young Men ; Faults and 


Inner Life 


Ideals 


Loving my Neighbor 




THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 



LEARNING TO LOVE 



BY 

J. R. MILLER 



Life is an education in love. 

Hugh Black 



NEW YORK 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL k CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



BV^a7 
■ft 48 



Copyright, 19 10, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



Published September, 1910 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



iCLA2?:-s<- 



LEARNING to love is a long lesson. It 
takes all of the longest life to learn it. 
The most inveterate obstacle in mastering the 
lesson is self, which persists with an energy 
which nothing but divine grace can overcome. 
When no longer we seek our own in any of 
our relations with others, we have learned to 
love. Until then we still need to stay in 
Christ's school. 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia, U.S.A. 



If we cannot live at once and alone with Him, 
we may at least live with those who have lived 
with Him. 

Martineau. 



It is a great thing to sacrifice ; it is a greater to 
consent not to sacrifice in one's own way. 

Charlotte Yonge. 




LEARNING TO LOVE 

HE test of love is service. 
The love which does not 
give and do to the utmost is 
not love. To live for one's 
self in any way, in any degree, is to leave 
a blur, a blemish, on the life, however at- 
tractive it may be in other regards. 

Transfiguration is not splendor that 
glows and flashes in light — transfigura- 
tion is love. Nothing else shines. The 
most brilliant life as men rate life is tame 
and lusterless till it begins to serve, and 
then instantly glory begins to radiate from 
it. There is more true glory in one 
homely act of self-denial, in one deed of 
thoughtful kindness, in one moment of 



2 LEARNING TO LOVE 

patient serving of another, than in a whole 
Sinai of clouds and lightnings. 

There is a legend of one of the shep- 
herds who was kept at home, watching a 
friend in fever, the night the angels came 
to Bethlehem with the announcement of 
the birth of the Holy Child, and sang 
their songs of joy. The other shepherds 
saw the heavenly host, heard their mes- 
sage and their song, and beheld the glory. 
Then they saw the newborn Child and 
their hearts were wondrously elated. 

But all that night Shemuel sat alone by 
the restless sufferer, watched and waited. 
His fellow-shepherds pitied his disappoint- 
ment, that he had missed the vision and 
the glory which they had seen. Yet in 
his lowly serving of the sick man Shemuel 
had blessing and reward of his own. 
He missed indeed the splendor of that 
night in the fields, and in his serving he 



LEARNING TO LOVE 3 

gave his own life, but his eyes saw then a 
more wondrous glory than his fellow- 
shepherds had seen on the Bethlehem 
plains. 

" Shemuel, by the fever bed, 
Touched by beckoning hands that led, 
Died and saw the Uncreated ; 
All his fellows lived and waited." 

He had lingered by the bed of sickness 
while they were looking on the glory ; 
now they waited amid earth's dull scenes 
while he witnessed the glory of the Eter- 
nal. So it is always in life in this world. 
Those who sit by fever beds, ministering 
to human need in its countless forms, 
seem to miss much that is very beautiful. 
Their lowly ministry keeps them away 
from places of honor, even from scenes 
of spiritual ecstacy. Absorption in the 
duties of love in the home or among the 
pour causes men and women to miss much 



4 LEARNING TO LOVE 

that the world esteems. But meanwhile 
there is a higher reward. They enter 
more fully into the joy of the Lord. 

After all, only that life is most worth 
living which has in it the quality of ser- 
vice and sacrifice. It is only life itself 
that is worth giving to others. Only 
when we serve in love that forgets itself, 
— gives itself out in its serving, do we 
. either find deep joy for ourselves or give 
true happiness or blessing to others. 

" Seeketh not its own" is the heart of 
the definition of love. " Love seeketh 
not its own." It never thinks of itself. 
It never aims at its own advancement, its 
own ease, its own pleasure. It always 
thinks of the other man. It seeks to give 
pleasure, to do good, not to have pleasure 
and to receive good. The first true aim 
in friendship is, not to have friends, but 
to be a friend. It does not ask what it 



LEARNING TO LOVE 5 

can get out of a friendship, in what ways 
the friend is going to be helpful, but what 
it can do for the friend, how it can pro- 
mote his interests, advance his good, be a 
help to him. " Love seeketh not its 
own." 

In one of Joseph Hocking's stories, the 
old preacher, a thoughtful man, says to 
his young people : " My little children, 
love is the great divine thing of life. It 
is God — for God is love. Only do not 
mistake the alloy of love for love itself. 
Much of what is called love is not love at 
all. It is simply a desire to be loved. 
Love gives — the thought of taking is 
only secondary. Love says, * How can I 
give happiness?' not 'How can I get 
it : ' The latter is simply love for self, 
the desire to be loved which is but a poor, 
mi crable caricature of love. That is 
why life is SO poor. We mistake the de- 



6 LEARNING TO LOVE 

sire to be loved for love itself, and try to 
be content. We ask, * How can I get ? ' 
not ' How can I give ? ' and thus God 
does not come near to us, Eternal Life 
does not come near to us. We do not 
live in the light, — we only see its faint 
reflection. And now abideth faith, hope, 
love, and the greatest of these is love, but 
love seeketh not its own." 

When we think of it, what is the kind 
of love we usually see in people about us ? 
The description runs, " Love seeketh not 
its own." Does it never in what we call 
love? Then it would seem that love is 
not very common, for there are not many 
people who never seek their own, that is, 
put thought of themselves first. Take 
the matter of choosing friends. Do we 
think chiefly of what the friend is to 
be to us ? or, of what we can be to him ? 
Must we not confess that too often it 



LEARNING TO LOVE 7 

is the selfish element that is the more 
marked ? 

The forming of special personal friend- 
ships is different in a way from the com- 
mon exercise of love to others. This 
involves a sacred relationship in which the 
greatest care is required. In choosing for 
marriage, for example, the obligation of 
unselfishness is mutual. In close personal 
friendship the same is true. The love 
must be on both sides. Yet here, too, 
the law is the same. Love must not seek 
its own. President King says: "There 
are some apparently smooth-running 
households that are smooth-running, not 
because the relations are what they ought 
to be, but simply because five people in 
the home have decided that the only way 
to have peace is to allow the sixth to have 
bis own way. And this sixth person may 
very likely think of himself as peculiarly 



8 LEARNING TO LOVE 

devoted to the happiness of the other 
inmates of the house. But his stand- 
point is that he knows far better than 
any of them what is good for them, 
and they shall have what he thinks is 
good for them, whether they like it or 
not." 

But this benevolent sixth person is in- 
finitely away from the spirit of love which 
Christian teaching requires. His is in no 
sense love that "seeketh not its own." 
True love does not demand its own way. 
Its first aim is always, not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister. We expect to live 
with our friends and to receive happiness 
and benefit from them. But if the love is 
what it should be it will always be with- 
out selfishness. Its first desire will always 
be to make the other happy, to bring 
comfort, cheer, and pleasure, and to add to 
the beauty and completeness of the life. 



LEARNING TO LOVE 9 

George Eliot draws a picture of such a 
friendship : 

" What greater thing is there for two human 
souls than to feel that they are joined for life, 
— to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest 
in each other in all sorrow, to minister to each 
other in all pain, to be one with each other in 
silent, unspeakable memories, at the moment 
of the last parting ? " 

This is a beautiful ideal. It is the out- 
line of a friendship in which each gives to 
the other the best he has to give. But 
we should notice that the heart of such a 
friendship is precisely what St. Paul indi- 
cates in his characterization, — " Love 
seeketh not its own." If either seeks his 
own, is ruled by selfishness, if self obtrudes 
in any phase of the fellowship, such a 
hallowed friendship as this is an impossi- 
bility. It is not enough that one of the 
two shall seek not his own — there must 



io LEARNING TO LOVE 

be two hearts beating as one in unselfish- 
ness before such a friendship can exist. 
The slightest trace of selfishness mars the 
beauty. Your friend may not always be 
conscious that he is thinking of your good. 
He may not every hour definitely and pur- 
posely set himself the task of doing you 
good, curing your faults, sweetening and 
enriching your life ; nevertheless, he de- 
sires always to be a help to you, and in 
every thought of you and every prayer for 
you, he is seeking not yours, but you, not 
to be helped by you, but to be your 
helper. 

A present-day writer says: "You need 
friends who, by their finer insight or their 
hidden faith, idealize you. They take 
you as they know you, as you are, but be- 
hind you, within you, and above you, 
they see another possible man. They are 
looking eagerly and waiting patiently for 



LEARNING TO LOVE n 

that man to emerge. By their expecta- 
tion and their faith, they help him out 
into the world. They are constantly say- 
ing what the master of the house said in 
the parable, ' Friend, go up higher.' 
You discover yourself anew in their very 
attitude toward some of your rawness and 
inexperience. You long to make the 
reality match with their faith in your 
capacity. It is deadly, in the long run, 
not to have that quality in our friends." 

" I do enjoy spending the evening with 
Fannie," one young fellow said to another; 
" she always makes me feel so satisfied 
with myself." We like to have people 
make us feel satisfied with ourselves, but 
it may not always be the wisest and the 
most wholesome friendship that affects us 
in this way. Might it not mean more to 
us if the influence of our friends upon us 
were inspiring instead of soothing, should 



12 LEARNING TO LOVE 

prove awakening and stimulating, instead 
of promotive of self-esteem ? " Love 
seeketh not its own." That is, it seeks to 
help us, to make life mean more to us, to 
show us new possibilities of attainment, 
to start in us new desires and aspirations, 
to set before us new visions of beauty in 
character. 

It may be more pleasant merely to 
compliment your friend on his promising 
immaturities, to praise and flatter his 
callow attainments, to make him think 
well of himself and satisfied with what he 
is ; but may not such friendship in the end 
prove harmful instead of helpful ? May it 
not inflate his vanity and make him con- 
tent with what he is? We should take 
delight in pleasing others, in saying kindly 
things to them, in encouraging and cheer- 
ing them, in complimenting them when 
they do well. Some people always have 



LEARNING TO LOVE 13 
a depressing, chilling influence over us. 
They never say a word of commendation, 
of approval, of cheer. Instead, they crit- 
icise, disapprove, point out the defects in 
ourselves or in our work ; at least they 
give the impression that they do not 
favorably regard what has been done by 
us. There is disheartenment in such 
withholding of praise. Some parents fail 
at this point. So do some teachers. 

St. Paul has a suggestive word on this 
subject in one of his epistles. He says, 
first, that they that are strong should bear 
the infirmities of the weak. Then he 
adds, " Let each one of us please his 
neighbor for that which is good, unto 
edifying." We are to please our neigh- 
bor. That is, we are to say to him the 
things that will please him, make him 
happy, give him pleasure. We have no 
right to give him pain in our words to 



i 4 LEARNING TO LOVE 

him, to be brusque, heartless, and uncivil, 
to restrain love, to discourage him. This 
exhortation is a very important one in 
a life of love. Good manners are part 
of Christianity. Grace means beauty, 
and nothing ungracious should ever ap- 
pear in the life of one who belongs to 
Christ. Even if we must speak words of 
reproof, they should be spoken in love. 

But there is a limitation which we 
must not overlook — we are to please him 
for his good, to edifying. We must never 
give him pleasure which would do him 
any hurt. Edification means building up. 
Whatever you say to your neighbor to 
please him must add something of beauty 
or completeness to the building of char- 
acter that is going on in him. Now you 
may speak to your friend words which 
will greatly please him but will not do 
him good, will not edify him, will not 



LEARNING TO LOVE 15 

add anything to the beauty and complete- 
ness of the building that is going up in 
his life. You may flatter him, and he 
may like it, but it will only puff him up, 
not build him up. You are his true friend 
only when you please him for his good. 
This you may do, not by making him 
feel satisfied with himself, as he is, in his 
faultiness and failure, but by giving him 
glimpses of higher things which he may 
be inspired to try to reach. " Love seek- 
eth not its own." 

There is another way in which love 
may seek the good of friends. One comes 
to you on behalf of another whose life 
has been full of burden and sorrow. The 
question is, What can be done to lighten 
the load and make the way easier for this 
person ? When you were younger, you 
would probably have entered with earnest- 
into the matter and have tried to help 



1 6 LEARNING TO LOVE 

to find some less burdensome way of life 
for the person. You would have felt 
constrained to try to give him relief. 
For example, if money would remove the 
hardness of the struggle and you had 
money, you would have been inclined to 
give it that the person might have an 
easier course. But you are learning as 
you go on through life that in seeking 
the good of others, you must not always 
make their burdens less. Our burden is 
God's gift to us, and God's gift is some- 
thing sacred ; it has a blessing in it for us. 
If you were to take away your friend's 
burden you would wrong him. The 
hard thing in his life perhaps is God's 
very way of preparing him for a higher 
place, for nobler character, for larger use- 
fulness. If you interfere, you may spoil 
God's plan for his life. 

When it is said, then, that love must 



LEARNING TO LOVE 17 

always seek the good of others, the mean- 
ing is not that it must always make things 
easier for them. Remember that your 
best friend is he who makes you do what 
you can. It is not wise love in a father 
that makes life too easy for his children. 
A young man has a desire to obtain an 
education, that he may be fitted for a cer- 
tain calling or profession. He has not the 
means to enable him to make the neces- 
sary preparation without much struggle 
and long delay. Some friend wishes to 
help him, and proposes to advance the 
money that he may pursue the course of 
training uninterruptedly, and in as effec- 
tive way as possible. Every one thinks 
the youn^ man peculiarly fortunate and 
advises him to accept the aid. But there is 
B serious question whether it is a kindness 
or not, thus to make the way so easy for 
the young man. Perhaps it would have 



1 8 LEARNING TO LOVE 

been better for him in the end if he had 
declined the proffered help and set out to 
reach the goal of his ambition by his own 
self-denying struggles. He would have 
made more of a man of himself, al- 
most certainly, if he had won his way 
unaided. 

We can help people most, not by doing 
things for them, but by inspiring them and 
then teaching them to do the things for 
themselves. Some young wives love their 
husbands and then in their tenderness try 
to restrain their earnestness and moderate 
their energy and hold them back from 
exhausting and self-denying service. It 
may be love, but that is not the best way 
to help make the man they would be 
proud of by and by. What a worthy man 
needs from his wife is inspiration, incen- 
tive, encouragement, cheer, the kindling 
of enthusiasm, the suggestion of high 



LEARNING TO LOVE 19 

ideals, loftier visions of Christian life, im- 
pulses toward nobler attainments and 
sublimer achievements. "Love seeketh 
not its own." It seeketh the best and 
heavenliest for its friend and tries to en- 
courage and stimulate him to reach it. 

We may look somewhat carefully at St. 
Paul's description of love, as we have it in 
the middle verses of this wonderful little 
chapter. " Love suffereth long and is 
kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave 
itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not 
provoked, taketh not account of evil ; re- 
joiceth not in unrighteousness but rejoic- 
eth with the truth; beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things." 

" Love suffereth long." It is dismayed 
at no cost. Young people without ex- 
perience are apt to think of love as all 



20 LEARNING TO LOVE 

pleasure, rapture, bliss. But love ofttimes 
means suffering. It means service, and 
service means sacrifice, even unto the 
uttermost. We never know when we say 
to another, " I will be your friend," what 
it is going to cost us to fulfill our promise. 
Here is a man who promised to love his 
wife and to cherish her until death should 
separate them. That was nearly a score 
of years ago, and she was a radiantly beau- 
tiful bride that night. For the past twelve 
years and more she has been an invalid, 
sometimes almost helpless, unable to do 
her share in the home life or to bear any 
burdens, herself only and always a burden, 
as the world would say. He carries her 
upstairs and downstairs, and from room to 
room. But through all this time his love 
has been faithful to its vow that wedding 
night. It never has failed. It is ten- 
derer to-day than ever. It never has tired. 



LEARNING TO LOVE 21 

Love suffereth long. It seeketh not its 
own. 

" Love is kind." Kindness is one of 
the sweetest words in the Bible. One of 
the great verses in the Scriptures is that in 
Isaiah: "The mountains may depart, and 
the hills be removed ; but my loving- 
kindness shall not depart from thee." 
Think of God's loving kindness. " Love 
is kind." It takes a long time to learn to 
be really kind — for when the lesson is 
perfectly learned the kindness will never 
fail. Most of us are kind at certain times, 
and to certain people, but to be always 
kind and always kind to everybody — that 
18 a lesson which it takes all life to learn. 
Yet that is what love is. That is part, 
too, of " seeketh not its own." No 
matter how they hurt vou, how they 
wrong you, how they pierce you with 
nails — love is kind, keeps on doing 



22 LEARNING TO LOVE 

gentle things. Love suffereth long and 
is kind. 

" Love envieth not." Perhaps you 
have not thought of that little word, 
envieth. " If one really loves another,'* 
says President King, " he will begrudge 
him no good, but he would rather bestow 
more if he could." It is easy to give way 
to envy when your friend is honored and 
you are overlooked, when people praise 
him and pay little heed to you. " Love 
envieth not." It is content to be for- 
gotten, and loves on, desiring only to 
serve, to be a blessing, to do good. It 
seeketh not its own. 

" Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up." It is humble, without self-conceit. 
Some people are so great in their own 
estimation of themselves, that they cannot 
see any greatness in any other. These 
cannot serve others. We should pray to 



LEARNING TO LOVE 23 

be delivered from self-conceit. It is a 
heavy burden to carry with us. " Love 
seeketh not its own." In honor it prefer- 
reth others, rather than self. 

Love " doth not behave itself un- 
seemly." It is modest, reverent, humble, 
lowly. " Is not provoked." Is good 
tempered. You cannot insult love. It 
does not bristle up, is not touchy. One 
who is irritable and gets provoked at every 
little thing is a great annoyance to others. 
They have to be always on the watch lest 
they hurt him or offend him in some way, 
he is so sensitive. A quick tempered 
person is a constant and painful annoyance 
to all about him. He is by no means 
pleasant to live with. Here is a man in a 
business firm who is so touchy, so irritable, 
so ready to fly into an ungovernable pas- 
sion at the merest word one of his partners 
or business associates, or employers may 



24 LEARNING TO LOVE 
say, that every one avoids him as far as 
possible. This man does not know the 
meaning of the words, " Love seeketh not 
its own." 

" Love taketh not account of evil." It 
is unsuspicious. It does not look for de- 
fects, does not count up the wrongs com- 
mitted against it, does not imagine slights 
or unkindnesses, when almost certainly 
none were intended. Boundless is the 
wretchedness which one person may cause 
who is always looking for and finding 
wrong things in others. " Love seeketh not 
its own," is careful not to do injustice or in- 
jury to others. " Love beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things." 
It hopes that the evil report about another 
is not true. It is loath to believe anything 
bad of another. It " endureth all things." 
It is patient. It never says, " I cannot 
bear this treatment any longer." It for- 



LEARNING TO LOVE 25 
gives, not seven times only, but seventy- 
times seven. It never thinks of self. 
" Love seeketh not its own." 

The problem of Christian living is to 
keep love in the heart, year after year, 
even though bearing wrong and injustice 
continually. That was the way Jesus did. 
His enemies reviled him, denied him, 
mocked him, betrayed him, but he loved 
on and never grew bitter. His heart was 
as gentle at the last as it was at the begin- 
ning. No matter how men hurt him, 
the wound healed itself instantly. That is 
the problem of love with us. " Love en- 
dureth all things," " never faileth." " For 
fifteen years," one said, " I have had to bear 
daily outbursts of anger, with abusive words 
and unkind accusations, in my home; 
must I go on keeping sweet just as if I 
received only sweetness ?" Well, that was 
Christ's way. That is what love means. 



26 LEARNING TO LOVE 

Thus all this wonderful description of 
love centers in the one quality — Love 
"seeketh not its own." It does seek, in- 
stead, the good, the joy, the benefit of the 
other, of any others, of all others. Self 
is hidden, overlooked, put out of sight, 
dead, and the whole aim of life is to do 
good to the other, to please him, to advance 
his honor, to add to the beauty of his char- 
acter, and to promote his true advantage. 

This is a most delicate test of life. Of 
whom do we think first in deciding that 
we will, or will not do a certain thing — 
of ourselves or of others ? Love does not 
ask, "What is in it for me? Will it ben- 
efit me? Will it bring me gain ? Will it 
make me happy?" Instead of this, it 
asks, " Will this be a blessing to others ? 
Will it impart happiness to them ? Will 
it give comfort and enrichment of life?" 
" Love seeketh not its own." 



LEARNING TO LOVE 27 

Take a somewhat wider view of the 
lesson. It is not to be confined merely to 
the few people with whom we form per- 
sonal friendships. It is the only rule for 
such relationships. There can be no real 
friendships of which this is not the basis. 
If we think of a friendship only for what 
it will mean to us, what help it will give 
to us, what pleasure we shall get out of it, 
we are debasing holy things. We must 
put it the other way and ask what we can 
make it mean to the person to whom we 
are seeking to be a friend. Then we are 
looking at it in the Christlike way 
* The Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, and to give 
his life." That which makes so much 
that is called friendship empty, a mere 
name, is because people reverse all this 
and seek to be ministered unto by those 
whom they take into their lives. They 



28 LEARNING TO LOVE 
expect to be served, and when the service 
ceases, when they themselves are required 
to serve and make sacrifices, bear burdens, 
endure sufferings, they grow impatient 
and weary of the bond which they have 
been calling friendship. 

The lesson applies in the widest sense. 
As followers of Christ we must have love 
that " seeketh not its own " in all our liv- 
ing. It was thus that Christ himself 
loved. The people had never seen such a 
friend as he was to them. Other men 
lived for themselves. They cared nothing 
for any one who could be of no use to 
them. They despised the poor. They 
gave no thought to the lowly. Then 
Jesus came and he cared for people regard- 
less of their condition. He sympathized 
with them in their distresses. He had 
compassion upon them in their needs. He 
went among them with all tenderness and 



LEARNING TO LOVE 29 

gentleness. He turned away from none. 
The man who needed him was the man 
he wanted to see. Even the loathsome 
leper found in him a friend with sympa- 
thy. The home with suffering in it was 
the home to which he went most eagerly. 
It was a strange revealing which the peo- 
ple found in Jesus. The world had never 
seen a life like his before. He did not 
seek his own — he was the friend of men, 
of every man. He sought to lift up the 
fallen. He saw something beautiful, at 
least he saw the possibilities of beauty, in 
the most depraved life, and sought to find 
these possibilities and bring them out. 

We know the way Christ lived and the 
way he loved. The cross was the end, but 
the cross meant love. The Good Shepherd 
gave his life for his sheep. We think of 
Christ as our Redeemer, and so he was. 
He died tor us. And that is the only 



30 LEARNING TO LOVE 

meaning some people see in the life and 
death of Jesus. But there is another 
meaning. He would lead us, too, into a 
life and a love just like his own. We 
must learn to love as he did. We must 
forget self, and seek not our own — just as 
he did. We are Christians only so far as 
we have his love in our lives. He saved 
his life by losing it, and there is no other 
way we can save our lives, but by losing 
them. 

There is a beautiful story of two boys 
in Switzerland. The mother from her 
window watched them crossing the frozen 
lake close to their home, to go to their 
father, who was working on the other 
side. They went swiftly till they came to 
a crack in the ice. The older boy leaped 
over easily, but the younger was afraid and 
stopped. Then the mother saw the taller 
boy lie down on the ice, making a bridge 



LEARNING TO LOVE 31 

with his body over the break, and then 
she saw the little one creep over on this 
human bridge in safety to the other side, 
and saw both boys then hurry on to 
their father. 

This illustrates what Jesus did for the 
world. There was an impassable chasm 
between earth and heaven, between men 
and God, and Jesus made a way by which 
all who will can cross that chasm. He 
said " I am the way ... no one cometh 
unto the Father but by me." He made 
a bridge of his own life, laying himself 
down across it that others might pass over 
on him to God's eternal life. Love in 
him sought not its own. He gave him- 
self that others might be saved. 

We understand this of Christ and what 
he has done for us, and we praise him for 
his wonderful love and redemption. But 
we should not forget that we are to be 



32 LEARNING TO LOVE 

bridges too and that men are to pass over 
on us from sin to salvation, from sorrow- 
to joy, from need to comfort, from death 
to life. We must be in the world as Jesus 
was — a friend of men and women and 
children. We that are strong should help 
the weak. It is well to build our great 
churches and have our glad services. It 
is well to rejoice in our privileges, our 
prayers, our holy communions, our love- 
feasts. Peter was so happy in the glory 
of the Transfiguration Mount that he 
wanted to twine boughs and build booths 
and stay there. But meanwhile sin, sor- 
row, and need waited below, at the foot of 
the mountain. They might not stay in 
the glory. We sometimes say we wish 
we could abide in our sweet fellowship 
here, and not go back any more to the 
world. But that is not the meaning of 
our spiritual life. This is not heaven yet. 



LEARNING TO LOVE 33 

We are on the earth to repeat the love of 
Christ wherever we go. Our hands are 
his hands, our lips are his lips. We are to 
have compassion, Christ's compassion, upon 
people who are living in sin. We are in his 
place to lift up those who have fallen. We 
are to be the way to God for those who 
cannot get to him. We are to lay ourselves 
down that others may cross over on us from 
weakness to strength, from defeat and fail- 
ure to victory and blessedness, from fear 
to hope. Until Christian men begin to 
love people in this way, they have not 
learned what it is to be followers of Christ. 
That is part of the meaning of the words, 
"Love seeketh not its own." 

Do we really love people ? Do we 
love them in any small degree as Christ 
loved them ? " As I have loved you, that 
ye also love one another" — is the meas- 
ure of the love he would have us bear to 



34 LEARNING TO LOVE 
all. Is it true of our love that " it seek- 
eth not its own " ? In his recent book, 
"The Friendly Life," Henry F. Cope says: 
" Men towards men are more brutal than 
are the brutes. Seeking their feed boxes 
and hayracks, they care not on whom 
they trample. Our factories, our streets, 
all our complex life, is like that scene at 
Bethesda — it is a good and hopeful and 
energizing place for the strong, a sad, hard 
one for the weak. But into the scenes of 
selfish strife there comes another presence, 
that of the lover of men, one filled with a 
passion for people, who does not despise 
the failure, who forgets that the beggar is 
dirty and decrepit, unwholesome and re- 
pulsive, who remembers only that he is a 
man and in need, who sees only the 
opportunity to serve. He is the great 
helper. His heart goes out to the help- 
less. He is the world's great teacher, of 



LEARNING TO LOVE 35 

humanity. He is the high priest at the 
eternal altar of sacrifice." 

Christ came to save the world. He 
would save it by love. He loved and 
gave himself. Now he would have us 
love and give ourselves. In no other way 
can his love get to the lives that need its 
blessing. Some one has said, " The great- 
est thing a man can do for his heavenly 
Father is to be kind to some of the 
Father's other children." To love others 
as Christ loved is the highest service we 
can render to any one. We should pray 
God to teach us this love that seeketh not 
its own. Only God can teach it to us. 
We cannot learn it in the high schools or 
colleges or universities, nor even in the 
theological seminaries. We can learn it 
only from the great divine Teacher him- 
self. We can get this love only down 
from heaven. It is not of any earthly 



36 LEARNING TO LOVE 

origin. It was born into the world the 
night that Jesus was born at Bethlehem. 
It can come into our heart and life only by 
being born again into us. We must have 
Christ himself in us, and then we shall 
love, then we shall cease to seek our own, 
then self shall die out of our hearts and 
love shall fill us and rule in us. 

We should practice the lesson, for only 
thus can we realize its possibilities. We 
know it in a way as a lesson, we can re- 
cite it fairly ; now let us practice it. We 
talk about practicing the presence of God, 
making it a familiar reality in this way. 
We talk about practicing immortality, — 
training ourselves to live the immortal life 
in our earthly relations. Let us also 
practice love. You can conceive of a 
person knowing music perfectly as a sci- 
ence, and yet not being able to sing or 
play the simplest song. You can con- 



LEARNING TO LOVE 37 
ceive of one knowing all the principles 
and all the rules of art, and yet not being 
able to draw the simplest sketch or paint 
the smallest picture. So you can conceive 
of one knowing all about love as a theory, 
all the science of love, all that Jesus taught, 
all that St. Paul taught, and yet not hav- 
ing in his life the simplest beginnings of 
love. 

We have been thinking of some of the 
forms and requirements of love. Love 
suffereth long and is kind ; love envieth 
not, love doth not behave itself unseemly, 
thinketh no evil, seeketh not its own, 
beareth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things. 

We know our lesson quite well ; now 
let us go out and practice it. 



SEP 27 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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